Pharmaceutical distributor International Healthcare Distributors (IHD) has proactively eliminated business downtime with Fathom, a browser-based application from Progress Software. Using Fathom, IHD has developed in-house systems that have realised the cost savings and benefits of proactive management and failure avoidance.
The company`s growing business intelligence (BI) requirements were impacting on its internal systems and it identified the need for a centralised, browser-based management console for monitoring and managing application resources.
"Progress Fathom provides IHD with more detail on its environment which enables proactive management of operations and it makes life easier for all the users," says Leonard Aubrey, System Administrator at IHD. "We decided to move to Fathom because over the past six years that we have used Progress, it has never let us down. Progress tools are also known to ensure ease of development and stability."
IHD is a logistics service provider to 11 major multi-national pharmaceutical manufacturers, and distributes directly to end dispensers such as doctors, clinics, hospitals and pharmacists. The company`s clients include Abbott Laboratories, Aventis, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Roche, Schering and Wyeth.
IHD operates five warehouses nationally, with the main one sited in Linbro Park, Gauteng, and others in Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban and Bloemfontein.
The company`s services include order capturing; order processing, warehousing, stock management, delivery and debtors management. In partnership with RTT, IHD established Kite Logistics, a company that specialises in providing a delivery service that meets the exacting quality assurance standards dictated by the pharmaceutical manufacturers.
Before implementing Fathom, IHD required complex scripts to monitor its environment that required specialist script skills. Also, the company had many databases to monitor, requiring an internal database extent monitor. It called on Progress to deliver a built-in alert to monitor its entire existing framework.
"Fathom has provided a 100% paperless environment for 300 internal Progress users at IHD," says Aubrey. "The application allows IHD to more effectively use its existing skills, eliminating the time spent converting and writing scripts."
Fathom requires no scripting, its graphical interface is simple to use for checkups and it has an integrated built-in alerting system. The system provides IHD database administrators (DBAs) and system operations managers with the performance tools and processes required to configure, monitor, diagnose and manage a Progress environment. Fathom`s database stores IHD`s critical information which can now be accessed anytime to view the status of monitored resources.
According to Aubrey, Fathom has provided IHD with unified monitoring and alerting architecture, a reasonably simple installation and configuration. It does not require special skills to maintain and DBA knowledge is transferred easily, ensuring effective use of administrators. Fathom`s special features include:
* Automatic alert routing to help IHD quickly respond to operational issues and reduce downtime by enabling proactive corrections to be made before situations, such as the lack of system resources, become serious;
* Data archival for trend analysis of information and capacity planning;
* Standard and customised reporting on critical system resources; and
* Discovery wizards for rapid deployment to guide customers through the entire installation process.
IHD plans to use Fathom version 2.0 in its integration with Unicenter TNG, an enterprise-wide management system, to create a centralised helpdesk that will alert the company of any problems that might arise. This integration will not require any further development or scripting. It will use the existing support alert infrastructure in Unicenter, and will be incorporated into a monitoring plan.
"Fathom has decreased the cost to IHD of managing its environment while ensuring high availability and performance," says Rick Parry, MD of Progress Software SA. "Progress developed Fathom to increase the availability and manageability of its customers` systems and to further improve what is already a strong total cost of ownership."
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